Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Abominable Dr. Phibes

In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1971 dark comedy horror film “The Abominable Dr. Phibes,” starring horror icon Vincent Price as the titular revenger himself. (originally published 04/01/2022)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
And this is Joe McCormick. Rob and I are out
this week, so we are bringing you an older episode
of Weird House Cinema. This was our feature on The
Abominable Doctor Fibes. I think one of my favorites. We've
done an excellent weird outing of Vincent Price. This one
originally published on April first, twenty twenty two, but there
is nothing April foolish about it. We hope you enjoy.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick and wooh,
I hope you like organ music because today we're doing
Doctor Fibes.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
That's right, The Abominable Doctor Fibes from nineteen seventy one.
This is a film that is frequently described as a
dark comedy horror film, which is a It is kind
of a way of saying, this movie's weird, and we
don't really know how to classify it, you know, because
it certainly has Yeah, it has comedic flair in it,

(01:18):
it has horror flair, but it's it's ultimately its own unique,
weird vision, and it's it's really difficult to compare it
one hundred percent to just about anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
I would almost say it's a musical, though the characters
don't sing songs. There are a lot of musical numbers
and dancing.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yes, yeah, it's very theatrical. Like in trying to come
up with an elevator pitch for it, I was thinking,
it's it's kind of Phantom of the Opera meets Batman
meets a wax museum horror movie and a swanky, unoccupied
nightclub for stylish madmen.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
But also you have to say the words Vincent Price,
because I think that is a key element of establishing
the themes.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, I think this is our first Vincent Price film,
and Fibes has been on our list. It's been on
our radar for a while, and I know we've heard
from at least a couple of listeners suggesting it, and
it came up again recently when I was looking at
films that had very well regarded movie scores, and so yeah, yeah,

(02:20):
this is our first Vincent Price film. Though we did
discuss The Tingler from nineteen fifty nine and an old
episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, but that was
pre Weird House. That was more of a like we
used The Tingler as a springboard to discuss some science
or vice versa.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know. I would say The Tingler is somewhat different
because The Tingler is a William Castle movie that has
Vincent Price in it. But lots of Vincent Price movies,
it almost feels as if it doesn't matter who the
director is, and it's just it just becomes a Vincent
Price movie. I would say this is one of those.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
It is. And then on the same level, one thing
I kept thinking about is, Okay, Vincent Price plays a
character in this film that doesn't actually speak with his
voice anymore. You hear Vincent Price's voice, but it's like
a it's like a through a machine. And so it's
unique to be watching this and you think, oh, well,

(03:16):
you know, Vincent Price is is great, like as a
visual performer, he has this amazing voice, and yet we
have a character who's in many ways mute in this
film and it kind of it kind of applies to
other characters in the film as well, like a lot
of a lot of the people in this film are
just part of the set piece. It's about about creating

(03:38):
this theatrical vision somehow.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Though, even though he doesn't speak with his mouth in
the movie, the price hamjuice gits on everything like the
Vincent Price campiness comes through in the energy exuded by
every other actor in the film. And I was going
to compare it to another great horror movie that I
just watched within the last year, because they are so similar.

(04:02):
This other movie is called Theater of Blood from nineteen
seventy three, so it came out two years after Doctor Fibes.
But if you can believe this, listen to all the parallels.
Both movies star Vincent Price as a performing artist of
some kind who is presumed dead but returns to enact
an elaborate plan of revenge on a list of nine

(04:25):
specific enemies, targeting each one in a succession of sort
of themed murders. And in Doctor Fibes, the themed murders
are based on the ten plagues of Egypt in the
Book of Exodus, and in Theater of Blood they're based
on deaths in the plays of Shakespeare. And in both movies,
the Price character has a cool, younger female sidekick. In

(04:46):
Theater of blood. That is actually that it is Vincent
Price's character's daughter played by Diana Rigg, who always great.
Diana Rigg one of my favorites, and in that one
she's great. But also in that one, Vincent Price plays
a ham Shakespearean actor instead of an organist.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
All right, well, those are certainly some five vibes. You're
definitely vibing with Fiby's there. Yes. You know. One thing
that I was thinking about, especially towards the end of
this picture, and we'll discuss the plot here in a bet,
was that this film The Abominable Doctor Fibes. It's kind
of like the precursor to such dreary themed murder films

(05:29):
as seven as I'm thinking, like Resurrection and of course
the Saw movies. Except this movie is like what have
you had? Something like that? And it was at least
ten times as fine, you know.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh more than that. Yeah, this is the exact opposite.
This is a weird, elaborate themed murders but just balancing
on rays of sunshine. Yes, so, I think Doctor Fibes
is one of my new show favorites. It's going on
the list with I think some of the best movies
we've watched on here Like I don't keep a running

(06:03):
list of my favorites, but there's somewhere in my head
it's gotta be like Mad Love, Robot Jocks, Ship of
Monsters and oh and Inframan and this one's going up
there too.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah, it's it's extremely watchable. I can easily recommend this
one to film vans of different genres because it does
transcend genre. It's not just a horror films. It's just
so stylish, so lovingly stylish, that I feel like it
can suck in just about anybody like you, just just

(06:35):
about any given scene. Even the scenes that don't play
take place within Doctor Fib's subterranean organ funhouse are still
like lavishly decorated and ingeniously shot.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Totally agree.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
All right, well, let's go ahead and listen to the
trailer here.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
Lovely music for a murder or two or three or nine?
Who is Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to meet
your dear friend. Nine killed you, nine shall die your wife.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
No FIBs but you I will kill But you can't.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
Doctor, I am already dead. Will wats up the guitar?

Speaker 1 (07:39):
The ten Cousins visited among the Pharaohs before Exodus.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
Are you ready for Doctor Five?

Speaker 1 (08:07):
All right, let's talk about some of the people involved
in this motion picture. First of all, let's start at
the top with the director, Robert Foost. Foost lived nineteen
twenty seven through twenty twelve, British director noted for his
unique genre style. It should come as no surprise to
some fans out there that he came up through the
Avengers TV show before making such features as nineteen seventies

(08:32):
and Soon The Darkness a thriller, a nineteen seventy adaptation
of Worthering Heights with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff, followed by
the two Doctor Fibes films, nineteen seventy three's The Final Program,
which was based on a Michael Moorcock novel starring John Finch,
and nineteen seventy five satanic melto Mania movie The Devil's

(08:54):
Reign starring Ernest Borgnine, The Shat, Tom Scarett, Jondrev and
of course Anton Levy.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
I was wondering if we should come back to The
Devil's Rain on Weird House. It is notorious for being
not very good but also be right sort of worth seeing.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, yeah, it has greatness. In it, and I think
maybe we're in a better we'll be in a better
place to understand it having experienced Fibes. But yeah, and
also it is possible that maybe the world just wasn't
ready for The Devil's Rain, especially when you look at
his filmography, because it looks like he mostly did TV
after The Devil's Rain. All Right, the writers on this,

(09:37):
they're two credited writers, James Whitten born nineteen thirty die
twenty sixteen, American writer who wrote the story for nineteen
eighty two's Murder by Phone starring Richard Chamberlain. And then
there's also William Goldstein, credited on both Fibes movies. Plus
nineteen seventy six is The Amazing Dobermans, in which quote

(09:57):
an ex con man and his five trained Dobermans helped
a Treasury Department agent stop a racketeer and his gang.
It starred James Franciscus, Barbara Eden, Fred Astaire, and Billy Bardi.
It has an amazing poster, and my wife says that
she remembered this movie. I think her family they always
had Doberman, so I think they've watched any if there
was a Doberman movie. They watched it.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Imagine the pitch for that. What about Doberman's that solve mysteries?

Speaker 1 (10:25):
I think there was a They also tried to turn
it into a TV show.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Wait, what kind of dog was Scooby Doo? I guess
he was supposed to be like a great Dane or something.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, yeah, not a The Dobermans have those like the
pointy head, those really dirty pointed heads. Yeah, dirpy or terrifying,
depends on how you look at them, but they can
look quite dirty, all right. The star of this film,
playing doctor Anton Vibes is Vincent Price, who lived nineteen
eleven through nineteen ninety three. The legend himself.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
God to love them. An actor of great, genuine talent
who could have kept pressing just to focus on serious
film roles, but embraced camp and that's something I really respect.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yes, and it was really really a master of it. Yeah.
Price was active on screen from the late thirties to
the early nineties. You know, great voice, great look, horror icon.
You know, could could really play serious threat but also
it seemed to have a great sense of humor and
was able to play that up. Was active in various genres,

(11:28):
especially early on in his career and you see him,
you know, showing up in some serious pictures during that
time period for sure. And then he did all sorts
of celebrity appearances and product endorsements later in life, and
it seemed to very much, you know, cash in on
things to a certain extent. Again, God bless him, he
earned it by that point.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
But time life enchanted world commercials. I think he did
commercials for what are they called wine? What was that
brain of wine coolers?

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yes, where he's dressed like a polar bear. Like. I
highly recommend anyone out there just do a like a
YouTube search for Vincent Price commercials and you'll get numerous
results and they're all great.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Oh if you find the ones where he's doing wine coolers.
I don't remember the brand name, but that same brand
of wine coolers also has commercials with Grace Jones that
are amazing.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Ultimately, I would say the Vincent Price pop culture footprint
is almost just too huge for us to possibly do
justice here in a single episode. So for my part,
I'm just going to mention a few of my favorites
from a few different categories. So, first of all, in film,
as much as I love this film, again, it is
kind of weird to cast Vincent Price in a role
where he doesn't actually speak. I think they're they're you know,

(12:43):
they are much better examples of him acting both as
a pure protagonist and also as an antagonist. You know.
Roger Corman's Mask of the Red Death is a great
example of him in pure villain mode, while in The
Tingler we get to see him as a as kind
of a tortured hero.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Wait is he a hero?

Speaker 4 (13:00):
No?

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Wait a minute, he's he's like trying to murder his
wife and the Tinler.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Oh, well, yes he was, but didn't he Well wait no,
I think he's sort he sort of is the hero,
but he's a bad dude. Is there a film where
he plays like a pure protagonist?

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of The Last Man
on Earth, which is one of the many film adaptations
of I Am Legend, Yes, by Richards, one of the
earlier ones. He's in that and he plays the main character.
Got how many film adaptations of I Am Legend are there?
There's the Omega Man, Yeah, there's the one with Will Smith,

(13:34):
There's the one with Vincent Price. There are at least three,
but there may be more.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, and I think they're they're planning on making more now.
Vincent Price also did a lot of television. One notable
thing is he he appeared on Night Gallery I think
a couple of times, including the nineteen seventy two episode
The Return of the Sorcerer, which is one of the
few adaptations of a Clark Ashton Smith short story. When
it comes to just pure seleting, I'd say his nineteen

(14:00):
seventy seven appearance on The Muppet Show is pretty stellar.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
That's right in his element. I mean, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Price can act opposite a puppet.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yes, yes, very well. Though of those Muppet shows, some
of the if you try and watch them in their entirety,
some of them can be a little painful at times there.
I mean there was a it was a Hammy show,
and you know, not everything holds up all that well.
But but Price was great on that. Now, when it
comes to music and spoken word, this is fact. I
wasn't familiar with the pure scope of this. But if

(14:31):
you go to discogs dot com, Vincent Price has sixty
eight listings. To put that into perspective, Christopher Lee only
had twenty six, which is nothing to sneeze at. But
sixty eight listings.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Does that include Christopher Lee's metal albums.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
I think it did. Yeah. Now, I won't pretend to
have heard even half of the releases from Vincent Price,
but I've got to go with his excellent spoken word
bit in nineteen eighty three track thriller that has loads
of fun, the funk of forty thousand Years. And then

(15:06):
when it comes to product endorsements again, the Time Life
Books Enchanted World advertisement is great. But also he did
run for Monster Vitamins. It's a lot of fun as
animated monsters in it, and he's talking children's vitamin commercial.
But you've got Vincent Brice there. Again. We can't go
through everything that Vincent Price was in, but just to

(15:28):
mention a few of the big ones. He was in
The Ten Commandments, he was in House of Wax, The
fly House, Unhunted Hill. He popped up on the old
sixties TV Batman series. He's a voice in The Great
Mouse Detective. He plays the villainous rat in that. And then,
of course his final feature film appearance is in Edward scissor.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Hands Rest in Peace Man.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
So Vincent Price is his character. Doctor Five's is listed
in the end credits to this movie as one of
two protagonists, which is humorous but also in keeping with
the strange vibe of the film. The other protagonist is
listed as Doctor of Vesalius, played by Joseph Cotton. Joseph

(16:14):
Cotton is another legend star of film, stage, radio, and television,
lived nineteen oh five through nineteen ninety four, probably best
remembered for his roles in I think three different Orson
Wells movies, Citizen Kane in forty one, The Magnificent Amberson's
and forty two Journey into Fear in forty three. He's
also known for The Third Man from forty nine. I
think that was the first first thing I really remember

(16:38):
him from, though I guess I probably watched Citizen Kane
around the same time. He was also in nineteen forty
four's gas Light, which is where we get the term
gaslighting from, and later on he appeared in such films
as Soilent Green in seventy three and such Italian films
as Marcello Alprandi's nineteen seventy six film A Whisper in
the Dark and Sergio Martino's excellent Island of the fish

(17:01):
Men aka Screamers excellent son. Anything he's in, it's a
solid screen presence.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
So in this he plays this character, Doctor Vesalius, who
is the last of the enemies targeted for revenge by
doctor Fibes.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, because this film ultimately follows a pattern that you
see in a number of different revenge films with kind
of an anti hero revenge killer at the center is
he'll have a number of targets, and you'll start with
the targets that are you either don't know much about
or who are actively villainous in some way or another,

(17:37):
and then you work your way towards a character who
is more relatable, and so you know, it forces you
to sort of enjoy the early kills but feel conflicted
about the later kills that are planned. All right, some

(17:59):
of the other people here, we have Peter Jeffrey in this,
probably not an actor that a lot of people are
familiar with. He plays Inspector Harry Trout. He's the hard
nosed British detective on the case. Ultimately has a lot
of screen time in this. He lived nineteen twenty nine
through nineteen ninety nine, and he had roles in such
films as The Adventures of Baron Muchausen Midnight Express, the

(18:21):
Return of the Pink Panther, and he played the character
Count Grindle on Doctor Who, among I think some other
characters on Doctor Who. He did a lot of TV work.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
This is our main Scotland yard detective trying to solve
the case of the doctors being murdered in bizarre ways,
inspector killed or trout.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, it's pretty fun because at times he comes up
a little bit comedic. Other times he's just kind of
just the hard nosed cop trope.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, oh oh, but we've got to talk about so
in this movie, doctor Fibes has a sidekick. He has
an assistant named Vulnavia and she's great.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yes, it's played by Virginia North who in my notes
here I have nineteen forty six through two thousand, nine
hundred and ninety four. I suspect that I have a
typo there. And she actually lived to nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Two thousand and four.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Make that two thousand and four, not twy nine hundred
and ninety four. Anyway, she was a fashion model who
only appeared in a handful of titles, including this, which
was her finer final film, and she also pops up
in on her Majesty's Secret Service. She wasn't a bond girl, however,
as the main love interest in that movie was played
by Diana Rigg.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
The Great Diana rig But yeah, I really enjoy North
as Velnavia in this movie. This is also both of
our sort of villain roles. That the killers in this
movie do not speak directly. Vincent Price only speaks through
like a tube in his neck plugged into a phonograph
in some scenes, and Velnavia doesn't speak at all, though
she does play a mean violin as like doctors are

(19:48):
being drained of all their blood and she can wield
a golden axe.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
That's right, So yeah, she's stylish and she's helpful. Now,
we're not going to list all of the various doctors
who are murdered by doctor Phibes, but two of them
are noteworthy. There's a doctor Longstreet played by Terry Thomas. That,
of course is Terry hyphen Thomas, who lived nineteen eleven
through nineteen ninety.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
This is one of those guys who you just see
his face and even if it's a still photograph, you
can imagine the sounds he's making and there's something like yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yes, yeah, he tremendous British comedian and character actor who
really excelled at playing kind of like kind of like
bumbling fops and upper crust weirdos. And yeah, there's a
certain type of role that Terry Thomas just absolutely excelled.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
At in this movie. He's a little bit Harvey Korman,
but also a little you're gonna balk for a second,
I think, but a little bit wings Howser.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Well. He definitely choose the scenes with a wings howser
Ian intensity. Terry Thomas was in a low oads of stuff,
but I'd say probably the biggest film he was in
the most well known as perhaps It's a Mad, Mad,
Mad Mad World from sixty three. He also pops up
in Danger Diabolic from sixty eight, which is another highly

(21:12):
stylish film, and that one was of course featured on
Mystery Science Theater three thousand. He was also a great
voice actor. If you've seen Walt Disney's Robin Hood, the
animated Robin Hood with all the animal characters from nineteen
seventy three, he is the voice of Sir Hiss the Snake.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
He's sort of the toady to the cowardly lion Prince.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
I believe so yes, all right, another doctor. We have
doctor Hargreaves, played by Alex Scott. Alex Scott was in
Next of Ken from nineteen eighty two, which we just
covered on a Weird House Cinema, so I won't go
into detail about him, but you know, if you want
to hear more about Alex Scott, we discuss him in
the cast section for our previous episode.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
He was the doctor in Next of Ken. Yes, he
was the doctor, and he's a doctor in this one too. Yeah, yeah,
still doing in this one he's a psychiatrist, right he
puts on the frog mask.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Now another small but fun roll. We have Hugh Griffith
popping up playing a rabbi who's called in or called
upon by the inspectors to give some expert advice on
some of the clues they've discovered. Griffith lived nineteen twelve
through nineteen eighty a Welsh actor who actually won a
Best Supporting Oscar Actor Oscar in nineteen sixty for ben

(22:32):
Her Now the next oh, this is one where I
think you. I don't think she was actually credited originally
on this film, but you might say that this film
also stars a photograph of Carolyn Monroe.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
That's right when we actually see so she plays doctor
Fib's deceased wife, and at some point later in the
movie we actually see her dead body. But I don't
think that's Carolyn Monroe.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah, I think it's just photographs offtware that are used,
which is interesting, especially since since she did go on
to she wasn't a number of films. She was a
pent up model, an actress who I think ultimately stole.
Seems to have stolen many, like seventies film nerds Heart
because she pops up in films like The Spy Loved

(23:19):
Me from seventy seven, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad from
seventy three, Captain Krono's Vampire Hunter from seventy four, at
the Earth's Core from seventy six, Star Crash from seventy eight,
Star Crash, Yeah, Star Crash, Dracula AD nineteen seventy two
from nineteen seventy two, and then she was in some
stuff in the eighties of note like a Maniac and

(23:40):
Slaughter High. But yeah, this is it barely counts as
an appearance. Like you could say that Rita Hayworth is
just as much an acting component in Shawsnitshank Redemption as
Carolyn Monroe is actually a cast member of this film.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Though her photo does get a lot of screen time,
as we have multiple scenes of Vincent Price just worshiping
a headshot of Carolyn Monroe.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, all but praying to her.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
You know. Another tie into a recent episode of the
show with Beastmaster two. Apparently Carolyn Monroe was at some
point in the running to play the character Ursa in
Superman the Villain from the planet Krypton, the part that
eventually went to the actress Sarah Douglas, who played the
sorceress in Beastmaster Two and who I thought was by

(24:28):
far the best part of that movie. But I think
Monroe turned down the role in Superman so she could
be in that Roger Moore movie.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
I don't have a real clear memory of that Bond
movie other than Who Loved Me. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah,
it's the first one with Jaws. It established Jows, but
it's in that regard it's just a necessary precursor to Moonraker.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah, that's true. So that one was actually well regarded
by critics when it came out. If you watch it now,
it's you know, like all those Roger Moore movies is
extreme cheesy. I recall that one also being one of
the ones with the most just evil James Bond in it.
Like I recall, there's a scene where some assassins trying

(25:11):
to shoot at him, and he's like kissing a woman
and then he literally just turns and uses her as
a human shield block the bullet from the assassin. I mean,
I think it's implied that she's in on, she's like
setting a trap for him, but still like, come on, dude,
that's pretty rough. Yeah, so that's a mean Roger Moore
James Bond though. Yeah, it has some good stuff about it.

(25:32):
The villain in it likes to feed people to sharks
because of course, or that's the guy he's got like
a gun under the long table. I think that's also
the one where it's the first one with Jaws in it,
and Jaws gets thrown to some sharks, but he defeats
the sharks by biting them.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
He bites the shark. Yes, okay, see, I mostly remember
it for Jaws.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Let's talk about the music on this one. The music
for this film, though a number of differ songs are
featured in it. The actual scores composed by Basil Kirchen,
who lived nineteen twenty seven through two thousand and five,
a British composer and musician responsible for the scores of
such films as sixty seven's The Shuttered Room starring Oliver Reed.

(26:16):
This movie the nineteen seventy four movie The Freak Master,
which I've been tempted to watch for this show. It's
kind of a seventies take on Todd Browning's Freaks, and
it has Donald Pleasance, Tom Baker, and Brad Harris in it.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Oh well, I like that cast list, but something about
the idea of a seventies take on freaks does not
appeal to me.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, this probably what's kind of held me back. I
know it has I think Tom Baker plays like a giant,
like a tall mutant character, and there's like a plant
man in it. So it's got some attractive elements to it,
plus Donald pleasants. But yeah, I haven't actually watched it yet.
I've had it, like you know, in the playlist ready
to go Now. Kirchin did not return for Fibes two,

(26:59):
but he's he's pretty interesting. Fellow was looking into him
a bit he came up in big band, but then
he also got into electronic music and experimental music and
tape manipulation, and so you've had a number of individuals
have pointed to him as an important influence, like Brian
Eno Broadcast. Also Nurse with Wound. That's the project from

(27:23):
Stephen Stapleton. If you're not familiar with Nurse with Wound,
it's a kind of an early industrial but also kind
of noise, weird musical project that I have to say,
I like Nurse with Wound, and then there's a lot
of Nurse with Wound music that I cannot listen to,
and if you played it for me, I would say,

(27:44):
I hate that, Please don't play it. But then there's
other stuff that's really solid, So I don't know. If
you're gonna check something out, I would say check out Thunder,
Perfect Mind or rock and roll Station. So I think
the five score kind of reflects some of these elements.
There's certainly a lot of big band notes as well,
of course, and then we have all this organ music
and other tracks that are featured. It gets a little

(28:06):
noisy and per percussive in places, especially when things are
getting weird or they want to amp up at tension,
but it didn't really get like Nurse with Wound levels
of strange. But this score is often held up as
an excellent genre score, though it's again it's kind of
a unique beast. It's widely available in all formats, though
I think most of the vinyl out there is older.

(28:27):
I haven't seen any evidence of any like super cool
re releases from recent years.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Though. I would emphasize that the music in this movie
is a kind of hybrid products because on one level
you've got this weird score, but then you also have
a lot of directly diegetic music taking place on the
screen that's like jazzy big band numbers and old sort
of Kruner standards.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, and finally, since this is such a visually luscious movie,
we have to mention the set designer Brian eat Well,
who lived nineteen thirty nine through two thousand and seven. Yeah,
the sets in this movie are just to die for.
So props to eat Well and everyone else involved in
creating these weird interiors. He was a British production designer

(29:11):
and art director. He designed the sets for both Doctor
Fib's movies as well. He also served as production designer
on such films as the nineteen seventy one Australian movie
Walk About, nineteen seventy three's Godspell, The Three Musketeers and
the Four Musketeers from seventy three and seventy four, nineteen
seventy six is The Man Who Fell to Earth starring

(29:32):
David Bowie seventy eight, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
The Onion Field in seventy nine, and the nineteen eighty
one Killer Lion movie Savage Harvest.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
See seventy three. Guy, I guess there was only one
movie adaptation of Godspell? Is that with Victor Garber?

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah? I assume this is. This is as far as
far as I know, the Godspell. This is the one
I've seen, and it does have I can see the
connection here, Like there's a between this this, this Broadway this,
you know, this weird Broadway musical brought to life and
the you know, the visual elements that are in play
in Godspell, like they compare reasonably well to some of

(30:10):
the sensibilities we see in Doctor Fibes.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Though Fibes never wears the Superman shirt. No, all right,
you want to talk about the plot.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Hello, let's talk about this plot.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Okay, so it starts very strong. You know, lights come
up on baroque organ music, and you see a player
in a hood and cloak. So this black hood, it's
kind of shiny. The cloak almost looks like it is
wet or oily. Maybe that's just the material. But the
the organ player is sitting at the instrument and then

(30:48):
being like raised up on as if on an elevator.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah it is this, Yeah, this elevator powered super moody
organ of the super villain organ playing area. It's like,
you know, it's a familiar trope. It's very Phantom of
the Opera, but then just played up tremendously. You know,
the visuals of this are just again just just so luscious.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
And then like the movie just starts at maximum WTF,
like how to describe what comes next? And it's a
recurring theme. But so the organ player plays while the
credits roll, and then he gets up and he descends
a staircase and the camera pulls back to reveal what
appears to be a musical ensemble made of embodied humanoid

(31:38):
automata like the Rock of Fire explosion, like Chuck E
Cheese or Showbiz Pizza but instead of having banjo bears
and cool rats, they are tuxedo dudes in Michael Meyer's masks,
and they're all playing tubas and drums and stuff. And
then he conducts them as if they were an orchestra.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, and the the drum informs us what the name
of this group is. It's Doctor Five's Clockwork Wizards. So
it's it's already off to a tremendous start, like this
is a film that's so bold and it's stylish weirdness
that we just kick things off with an extended horror
pipe organ number in this underground nightclub. And then we're

(32:21):
getting no dialogue, no real you know, human faces or
human voices or anything, just like pure performative weirdness.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yes, and it commits so hard, like it goes on
like you're saying, without dialogue for a while. So the
organist in the in the cloak steps back, and then
there's a whole dance number. Virginia North comes out in
this amazing I don't know what to call the sugar
plum fairy costume. Like she's wearing this weird white dress
with a strange golden vertical crown on her head, and

(32:52):
they dance together while the while the robots play.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, and it's just it's tremendous, like it just it
just sucks you absolutely and you're like, it's and it
works on so many levels, Like it sets the tone
for a film where it's really hard to have expectations
about what's going to happen because you're not entirely sure
what this film's values are. I kept thinking about that.

(33:18):
It ultimately made the the you know, the last twenty
minutes of the film extra terrifying for me because it's like,
I don't know what how a film like this ends.
I don't know what it considers a proper ending, because
it feels like it's from another dimension.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Can we stop, though and describe the set in this
room because they will return to it many times throughout
the throughout the movie, I was calling this the total
party house because of course you have the ensemble there
and and it's it's sort of always a party when
when the when the autometer playing, but it's it's like
a room with a giant I guess marble floor and

(33:53):
then uh like balcony levels surrounding it all around, and
what are some of the things in there, like there's
a table on one side of the room that has
all of these busts or the upper parts of mannikins.
I think there are nine of them, each one with
a ceiling lamp hanging over it that I think they're

(34:16):
supposed to be made of wax or something like. We
see them melting later. And the organ is up on
the stage at one end of the room. The room
is decorated with all these satin curtains and these paintings
on the columns leading up to the balcony with like
these I don't know what you like, like pharaoh heads
and weird symbols. Yeah, it's a trip, Yeah it is.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
It is a space that, you know, it feels performative.
It feels like a like a nightclub, but it also
feels like a temple, and it is kind of like
his temple to holy revenge, a temple to it's to
his love for his departed wife. Those heads represent each
of the victims that he is going to kill, the

(35:02):
objects of his revenge. So it's yeah, it's it's It
has a real, you know, strong ritualistic and performative vibe
to it.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Well, after the dance is over, the guy in the cloak.
He goes to operate a chain pulley, and I guess
we can refer to these characters because we know who
they're going to be. This is doctor Fibes Involvania, and
so he goes to operate a chain pulley in the
middle of the room and it lowers something that looks
like a shrouded bird cage into a subfloor basement, and
then Volvania goes down to the subfloor and tends to

(35:36):
she kind of straps it onto I think a trailer
on the back of a car. She straps it down
with a leather belt, and then they get into the
car and drive away, and we see them driving the
car and it's the funniest shot. So Volvania is I
don't think that's supposed to be her hair. Maybe it is.
She's got her head is covered in this big ball
of fur, and I guess it's supposed to be a

(35:57):
fur cap.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
I think so. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Meanwhile, Fibes is sitting in the back seat being chauffeured
with just like wearing the black hood and with the
stalking over his face, so he's just you know, faceless terror.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, it's worth noting that both of these characters have
so many different costume changes that revenge. They say, revenge
is a dish Beth serve cold. But that doesn't mean
you can't style it up. That means doesn't mean you
can't change your cloak frequently, that you can't engage in

(36:29):
any number of rituals. Yeah, they're heavy into this vengeance game.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
So they're headed out somewhere and we cut to a
bedroom we assume is where they're headed. It's the guy
in a lavish bedchamber with I don't know, fancy stuff
all over the walls, like paintings of horses and markers
to indicate this is a rich guy. But then in
the ceiling above this guy's bed, a skylight in the
ceiling opens up and we see fibes in Wolvania lowering

(36:57):
in that bird cage from earlier, and then they retract it.
They pull it back up with a trapdoor in the
bottom of the cage hanging open, so it seems they've
released something into the room. And this is the first
murder of the movie.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
That's right, it's gonna be death by fruit bat, just
like in the Old Testament.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Okay, we'll get into the biblical accuracy maybe a little bit.
I don't know about that. But so the guy in bed,
he is attacked by bats. They're like bats crawling on
him and he's like h. And then we do the
intro in reverse, the cloaked figure and Volvania. They return home,
they turn off the Michael Meyers rock fire band and

(37:37):
then he descends into the floor playing his organ. But
the next morning, in the bedroom of the victim, we
get to see some Butler action. Butler comes in with
eggs on toast and like a bat lands on the
eggs and there are bats everywhere and the guy's face
we see him laying in bed. It has been fully oatmealified.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, death by free bat.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
And then we see the first of a ritual that
will repeat throughout the movie, which is that doctor Fibes
back at his party house. He puts a appendant with
a significant looking symbol on it on one of the
heads of the mannequins or the busts on the edge
of the big concert hall room, and then he burns

(38:21):
the face of the bust with a candle. But the
next morning we get to see the police investigating, and
the police are they're played for comedy in this movie.
They're all bumbling. One of them says, it's a strange business.
Tom a man literally shredded to death right in the
heart of London. We find out that the victim was
a medical doctor, and the police noticed something. They noticed

(38:44):
that this vicious fruit bat shredding is similar to the
recent death of another doctor in town who was killed
by a swarm of bees in his library, and they say,
almost turning to look at the camera, they say, his
face looked as if it were covered in boils.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
And that will be important shortly.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
So then we go back to the Total party house
and we see Vincent Price putting on his face. We
don't know what doctor Fib's real face looks like, but
once he does a bunch of stuff to it, he
looks like Vincent Price. And I love this. I love
everything about it. I love the weird sets. I love
Vincent Price with shaggy ringo hair, and I love how

(39:26):
they make Vincent Price's actual face look like a sagging
rubber mask on his head.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
They do, Yeah, they give him this really waxy color,
and yeah, they add some other little elements to it.
And he also, you know, of course it's Vincent Price.
So he has a great mustache but also really nice sideburns.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yes, but also dark rings under his eyes always.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, so he looks very, very haunted like. Even though
he's not in pure monster mode right now, he still
looks kind of monstrous and unnatural.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
But the movie wastes no time. It is immediately on
to the next Doctor Murder, so we meet doctor Hargraves again.
He's he's at some swanky party where it's like fancy
people all wearing animal masks of some kind, and Price
is there in a mask. He gives a frog mask
to doctor Hargraves. Doctor Hargraves seems to just accept it

(40:21):
and Vincent Price helps him put it on. He like
does the catch on it, and Hargraves introduces himself. He says,
I'm a psychiatrist, you know, a headshrinker. But uh oh,
this frog mask, it's a it's a track from Saw.
It's like a head crushing action mask where it just
keeps ratcheting itself tighter. And the doctor staggers around trying

(40:42):
to get help from a drunken lizard and some oaf
and a pig mask, but there's no way of saving him.
He just his head is crushed and he lays there
with the frog mask and blood coming out of it
while people in horsehead masks and other weird costumes look
on in amazement.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
So counting the offscreen death, that's like the third death.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
So three down right, And we get a rundown of
this by the police in the next scene because there's
a scene at Scotland Yard with cops. They're talking about
how they don't want this story about animal themed doctor
murders to get out to the press. There's something that
characters say multiple times in this movie. They're like, medical
men die all the time.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
I mean true, is because human beings die all the time,
but under suspicious circumstances with animal themes. I don't know
that that's like statistically a thing.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah, So Inspector Trout is he's tracking now, He's like,
wait a minute, bats, bees and frogs, so what's going
on here? But then it's immediately on to the next
doctor murder. It's just they're coming thick and fast, and
the next one is doctor Longstreet. Is this Terry Thomas.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
This is Terry Thomas, And it is such a Terry
Thomas scene.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
So when we first meet him, he's immediately furtively ripping
into a cylindrical parcel. I think he doesn't want his
housekeeper to see what he's doing. And he's acting all
sweaty and squirrely, and he appears to What's going on
is that he seems to have received a canister of
racy film reels from the East and he plans to

(42:17):
watch them on his rattling projector while absolutely chugging red
wine tonight, since the housekeeper is going to be out
for the evening. Yeah, and this is the part, so
we're watching, you know, he puts on his film reel
and he's watching. It's of like a lady dancing with
a snake.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Yes, and it's like a belly dancing snake dance kind
of a film, you know, but also a very old film.
This is not something that well, you know. It brings
me back to the question, I'm not sure exactly what
when this film is supposed to be taking place. It's
not supposed to take place in the seventies.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
No, I think it's supposed to take place in like
the twenties probably.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Okay, so maybe it is a current film that he
has acquired here.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Okay, but yeah, Terry Thomas, he is a dirty chap
and he looks a little bit Wingshauser ish. Here he's
watching inappropriate film reels, chugging red wine out of a
sniffer and like licking his lips so that he's just
being gross.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Yes, it's a great scene.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
But then uh oh, here comes of course, doctor Fibes
and Volvania show up at his house. You know, they
walk in and he's just kind of like, huh, what's
going on? And while they sit him down in a chair,
strap him in and then drain out all of his blood.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Yep, put it in bottles up there on the they're
about the fireplace. I believe we're on a shelf. So
that's four doctors down.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
But this one kind of breaks the animal theme. This
one is blood. Huh, what's going on? But the police
put together a different pattern. They figure out that all
four of these doctors worked for another doctor named doctor Vesalius,
and this is Joseph Cotton, and so Inspector Trout goes
to his house to meet him and see if he
can make any sense of this, and I like how

(43:58):
when he gets there, Vasilius's teenage son Limb, is very
impressed by the presence of Scotland yard. Yes, and Vasilius's
house looks like a hair salon.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Oh, it's so stylish, so stylish. There's like, you know,
African masks on the wall. There's this like satyr statue
with a light above.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
It, shiny surfaces everywhere, potted plants, mirrors on the walls,
and a lot of fancy chairs just lined up along
the walls. Does his house have a waiting room? I
don't know. But doctor Vesalius we see is a model
train guy. Rails and train cars are scattered all over
the floor. When Trout shows up and Trout fills him in,

(44:38):
he's like, Okay, here's what's going on. And he's like,
do you know why someone would want to kill all
of your associates? And of course Vassilius has no idea.
He again, he says the same thing as the guy earlier.
He's like, men in my profession die every day of
the year. I don't know how often, in like frog
related deaths though, But yeah, But anyway, when the police

(44:58):
find out about the the Long Street murder here, they
get a clue, which is the pendant left behind the scene.
Doctor Fibes actually drops the pendant there by accident, and
so they find it. They take it back to a goldsmith,
the person who made it, and the goldsmith tells them, Yep,
this is an ambulance. I made ten of them. It

(45:20):
was a lady who ordered them. And Trout is like,
was she smart? And then he says fashionable.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah. It's a fun scene because there's a lot of
goofy back and forth between these two characters.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
But the jeweler informs Trout that the sign on the
ambulant is something requested by the person who bought them,
and it's a symbol in Hebrew. So the inspector then
has a new clue and takes it to a rabbi
to get the run down, and here we get a
major exposition scene. So the rabbi tells him that the
symbol is Hebrew for blood, and ah, okay, this makes

(45:58):
sense because Longstreet drained of all blood. But it's also
notable for being one of the ten plagues of Egypt,
of course, turning the Nile into blood, and so here
we get a speech about the ten plagues of Egypt.
So this is from the story of the Exodus in
the Torah, and the context is that the Jews are
in bondage in Egypt, and God keeps sending plagues against

(46:20):
Egypt to force the pharaoh to release them. Here we
get a list of the plagues which are in order.
And I'm not saying these are necessarily the correct plagues.
This is what the movie says. Says they are boils, bats, frogs, blood, rats, hail, beasts, locusts,

(46:42):
death of the firstborn, and darkness.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
All right, we've had the first four, so we're almost
halfway through.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
I feel like I must flag as kind of a
Bible nerd like compare that to the actual list in
a good translation of Exodus. I don't think that really matches,
but anyway, so we get more scenes with doctor Fibes
back at the party house, and this is where we
first see him speaking to a shrine of the image
of a woman. We find out his wife. This is

(47:10):
the one played by the photo of Carolyn Monroe against
Stella Star, and he's like worshiping this headshot of her.
He's got a whole table I think of her belongings
laid out. And we mentioned earlier that Vincent Price never
actually speaks out of his mouth in this movie, so
the only times he talks are by plugging a phonograph

(47:33):
into a jack in the back of his neck, and
this connects to another weird scene later where he looks
it looks like he's drinking a beverage by pouring it
into the back of his neck.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Yes, At one point he tastes something he's mixed up
on his finger by like sticking his finger back there
to where they're when we never see it, but presumably
there's some sort of a mouth hole back there that
has been I don't know if it's surgical or technological,
but not knowing for sure makes it all the more impressive.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
When he's tasting something, is that the Brussels sprout goo.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Yes, the Brussels sprout.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
We'll get to that. But this also provides some exposition
because talking through the phonograph, he gives this whole fiery
speech and he says, nine killed you, nine shall die,
nine eternities in doom. But we also get some exposition
on the other side with doctor Vesalius and the police.

(48:29):
So he and Trout do some research and they figure
out that there was actually only one case where Vesalius
worked with all of the doctors who are now dead,
and that was on one patient named Victoria Regina Fibes,
and we get the whole backstory. So she had some
medical emergency they were operating on her. Her husband was

(48:50):
someone named doctor Anton Fibes. And as Anton Fibes was
racing to the hospital where his wife was in surgery,
his car went off a cliff and exploded and he
was incinerated or was he? And the reason from this Okay,
so the rest of the surgical team that worked on
this case of Victoria Fibes, they all need to be

(49:11):
put under police protection, but the police don't really get
there fast enough for most of them. Because the next
scene is where Vincent Price uses an air conditioner in
a car to kill a guy.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like this in the carriage there, they
just kind of like pull him over, take incapacitate the driver,
and then just hook him up to the AC and
freeze him solid.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
And there's like snow blowing in his face from this machine. Yeah,
it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
And this one there's a scene too that's very feels
very Avengers and in its weirdness, you know, because we
got like a little bit of super science that in weirdness,
and we're also getting into that territory here too with
our villain. Where our villain is. He's not incapable of air.
We saw him drop the amulet earlier, but he's really

(49:58):
thought out everything and is a man of multiple talents,
a real villainous polymath.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yes. In fact, the very next scene we start to
learn about all of his different expertise. So first of all,
we get a clue for Scotland Yard, which comes from
doctor Vesalius's son Lim, who says he was in the
music shop, I think, talking to the owner there about
the great organists, and he just happens to name some

(50:24):
of the great organists off hand, Bridges, Drew and Fibes.
And so they're like, oh, oh, I see doctor Anton Fibes.
He was a great organist, and he's apparently been paying
the local organ shop guy recently, even though he's supposed
to be dead. So they take a trip out to
the crypt where mister and missus Fibes were supposedly laid

(50:45):
to rest, and we get more discussion about his background.
They say, okay, he's not only a concert organist, he's
also a PhD in theology, And I thought this was hilarious.
Inspector Trout is like, that would explain his knowledge of
the ten Plagues of Ea seems like rather basic knowledge.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yeah, it's not really a deep cut.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
But another really weird thing here is that wait a minute, Okay,
so Fibes is a concert organist and a PhD in theology.
I started to wonder, that is a really weird coincidence
if this is not supposed to be a play on
Albert Schweitzer. But I don't know why else that would be.
So do you know anything about Schweitzer.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
I didn't know a lot about him until you mentioned
the possible connection, and I read like just a basic
bio on him. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
Yeah, He's an interesting figure who was a medical doctor,
a concert organist, and one of the most important scholars
ever of the New Testament. He's largely responsible in a
historical Jesus scholarship for putting forward probably the reigning historical
understanding of Jesus today, which is that he was an
apocalyptic Jewish prophet, somebody who is predicting the imminent end

(52:02):
of the world. But I was just thinking, like, it
doesn't make a lot of sense otherwise, But it would
be that is such a weirdly specific thing. An organist
and a PhD in theology.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
I don't know, so yeah, I mean it makes sense.
It's one way to flesh out your villain. Pick a
pick an historical figure and say what if we made
them into a supervillain, if if they were a supervillain,
what would it be like?

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Yeah, So, I don't know, strange choice, but interesting anyway.
At the crypt we've got, you know, so they well,
let's just pop open these coffins and have us looks here.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Yeah, there's no official process here. They just just rip them.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Open, just pop them open. Yeah. So they pop open
the Doctor Fibes tomb. It has only ashes in it,
but whose ashes we don't know. They pop open the
Missus Fibes tomb, nothing, completely empty. One of the next
scenes I recall is Inspector Trout back at the office
receiving just a whacking chew out from his superiors. They

(53:03):
you know, he's what what is that? Do you remember
this boss's name? The guy who's yelling at him for
like a minute straight.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
I believe this is James Grout just playing sergeant. I
could be wrong on that, but but it's a it's
it's a real fun role because he's Yeah, he's a
real he's a real hard ass.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Yeah he's he's demanding that they solve the case immediately.
You know, we can't have these weird doctor murders just
hanging out there because there was public outcry and that's
falling on me. And the Big Boss also yells at
Trout for not wearing his suit jacket inside. He's a
real stickler. And then we get another doctor murder scene.

(53:38):
This one I thought was kind of strange, but it
was the rat attack in the planes. One of the
doctors is an amateur pilot. He takes his plane up
and then while in there, I guess they, I guess
doctor Fibes and Wilvania have put rats in the plane.
The rats attack him, and then he crashes the plane.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
I guess part of it's the sequential nature of this
and also the britishness of it. But I was reminded
of Psychomania a lot in this, because it's a whole
section in Psychomania where you have all the bikers trying
to kill themselves in unique ways. They can come back
as undead bikers, and there's kind of like each one's
more ridiculous than the last.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
That is a great sequence. Oh psychomania. Oh, that's also
one of the best, I.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
Think, speaking of the best, oh, the next murder, Oh
it maybe it's one of the cheapest where you're kind
of like, I don't know, fivees, you're kind of really
stretching the theme here. But on the other level, like
absolutely top marks for creativity and style.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
So the police have not been able to protect any
of the doctors yet, so they finally get to the
next one before Fibes can. They're at his Gentleman's club
in London, I guess, and they're like, okay, we're going
to take you into protective custody. We'll make sure nothing
happens to you. So they're walking out of the club
and as they open the door, you just hear like
an arrow hitting the target sound effect, and he has

(54:59):
been pierced through with the horn of a brass unicorn.
Yes as oh when they say it was fired from
a catapult.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Yeah, And this is one of those moments in the
village just reminds you like, don't try and think too
forensically about this motion picture. If you're like, well, how
did they get a cat they lay a catapult trap there,
and how did they work out the aerodynamics of launching
like this brass unicorn at this guy. They well, just
don't worry about that. Just trust us. It happened.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
The unicorn horn has a spiral pattern on it, and
they have to unscrew the guy from the wall. They
show like his feet going around.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
Yes, it's such great gallows humor. I love it.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
But then so you've got this extremely silly scene, and
then right after it there's kind of a serious scene
where Fibes is he's again worshiping the headshot of Carolyn Monroe.
But in this one he recites part of a wonderful
love poem by John Dunn, The Good Morrow.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Do you know this one, Rob, I wasn't familiar with
this one.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
You might remember lines from it, you know, people might
have read it at school, and sometimes it has the
lines if ever, any beauty I did see which I
desired and got twas but a dream of the Well.
He doesn't say those lines in the movie. Instead, he
quotes some lines from the last stands of the poem.
He quotes them out of order. So the last stanza
is my face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

(56:22):
and true plain hearts do in the faces rest? Where
can we find two better hemispheres without sharp north, without
declining west? Whatever dies was not mixed equally. If our
two loves be one, or thou and I love so alike,
that none do slacken, none can die. It's a great poem.

(56:42):
But he so he reads the first four lines of
that stanza, but he reads lines three and four and
then one and two, so the ones about the hemispheres,
and then in the Face's Rest.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
Well, yeah, he's put a lot of work into this
whole revenge cycle and ritual, so you know, he's figured
out how to mix it up a little. He's got
to get it just right. There's been many takes.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
But then it goes straight from that into probably I
would say, the weirdest murder in the entire movie, would
you agree.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yeah, yeah, it's And it's also and then this is
nice that the murders all feel a little bit different
and they're presented in different ways. Like we get no
clue at all about the setup for the brass Unicorn
catapult murder.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Yeah, but they one making the unicorn or everything.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
No extended scenes of that, but this one is all
about the prep work. In fact, you're just set You
just set there watching this weirdness take place, and you're like,
what are they doing? What?

Speaker 2 (57:37):
What?

Speaker 1 (57:38):
What? What of the ten plagues of Egypt involved Brussels sprouts.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
Let's talk about Brussels sprouts. What is happening. Volvania is
walking around dressed like Queen Elizabeth and holding trays of
Brussels sprouts, and Vincent Price is standing over a giant
pot of boiling Brussels sprouts, and he's like picking Brussels
sprouts from her hands and throwing some of them into
the pot and throwing other ones away. He's inspecting them

(58:04):
to see if they're just right. I don't know why.
I don't know how this works, but he's like making
he's turning the Brussels sprouts into some kind of essence
of Brussels sprout.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Yeah, and I wasn't sure what was going on. I
was like, well, we know that, you know, obviously he
was heavily disfigured, and we I think by this point
we already know that he drinks through his neck. So
I was thinking, well, maybe this is just what doctor
Fibes consumes. Maybe he's on a liquid diet and he
likes Brussels sprouts and Brussels sprouts are good for you,
and Brussels trouts are great, so I mean, maybe not

(58:38):
in this form, but.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
No, this is this is the world. I mean, I
love Brussels sprouts like good and like roasted. The idea
of boiling Brussels sprouts down to a paste is one
of the most disgusting things. I can imagine Brussels sprouts
in wet heat. No no, no.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
Yeah, but yeah. Watching this, I was like, I have
no idea where this is going, but I'm all in,
let's say.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Well, where is it going. We've got one last person
on the list. It's a nurse who worked on the
you know, the Victoria Fib's case, and so the police
are trying to protect her. They send her into a
room in some building where every surface is green.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
Yeah, very nice and fits with the theme of green goo.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
So they're like, okay, go in this room and sleep,
and she's like okay. They tell her to take a
sleeping pill, and I guess that would explain why she
is slow to wake. Later, doctor fib sneaks into the
floor above her, drills a hole in the floor, hooks
up a machine to pump green goo. I guess this
is what he made out of the Brussels sprouts into

(59:39):
the room. It dribbles all over some globe lamp and
then dribbles all over her face. And then he releases
locusts into the room via a tube and they march
single file and then they go down and I guess
they start eating the green goo off of her because
they like plants. I don't know. And then they just
strip her flesh down to the bone.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Ones, Yeah, just completely deflesh or skeleton.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Yeah, pirhify her?

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
M M.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Is that weird enough for you?

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
It's such a weird scene, and of course you know
it's completely unrealistic, but kudos he was able to work.
It was like, once I saw the bugs, I was like, ah,
you're doing the locusts. Okay, now it all makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
He made Brussels sprout goo then used Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Well you know he's been working up again. A lot
of work went into this. He probably tried different you know,
liquefied vegetables and liquefied plants to see what would get
the locust excited enough to completely consume a human human
bodies flesh, And this is what.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Worked, and she never woke up the whole time.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
No, Oh, she'd taken a sleeping pill, so she was out.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
But then finally we get down to the climax, which
is when Vesalius realizes that, oh, the biblical plague falling
to him is the death of the firstborn, his organist son,
His son Limb has been kidnapped by doctor Fibes. And
here here we come to our James Bond trap ending.
So Visilius finds out that Vibes has his kid. He
knocks out Inspector Trout, who tries to stop him, and

(01:01:09):
then he heads over to the party house where all
kinds of things are happening. Volnavia is wearing this amazing
like red cloak with a with a golden sun, with
all these like insect legs on it, and this this
hat with peacock things shooting off of it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
I don't know, she's the high priestess of the revenge.
I think at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Yes, beautiful, and this uh, the Automata are playing their
their big band music, and doctor Vasilius arrives and and
oh god, they explained this whole thing to him. They're like, okay,
you've got six minutes to operate on your son. To
get a key out of his body that I've placed
in his body that you will have to use to

(01:01:53):
unlock the table, which so you can move the table
that he's on so that this time doesn't release a
bunch of acid onto him.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
Rights. It's like, this is very much this is where
I was definitely thinking about, like the Saw movies and all,
but like, really Jigsaw just a rank amateur with no
style at all compared to Doctor Fibes. Because as grotesque
as this sounds, and it does come off as like
legitimately kind of uh, at this point, it's still beautifully rendered.

(01:02:23):
You know, this white background, it's very stylish, and it
also works really well. I feel like the tension really
builds in this part of the movie because, like I
referenced earlier, we're at the part where we're past the victims,
where we can be like, Okay, that guy seems sleazy.
I guess it's okay of our unrealistic movie villain kills them.
But now like we're dealing with with the doctor alone,

(01:02:45):
we haven't really seen anything to any reason to hate
him and his son even more so, like he is
an innocent when it comes to the death of Fib's wife,
you know, no matter how you you know, tease apart
the details of her demise, right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
So Alias is he's he's sett into it. He's trying
to get the task done. Meanwhile, Volnavia goes to grab
a solid old axe and just starts hacking up the
whole place. I guess you know, Fibes is like, we're
done destroy everything. So she's at it. We get a
Fibes face reveal. Yes, where what is his real face?

(01:03:20):
It's I don't know how to describe it. It's a skull face.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
Yeah, it's a very very phantom of the opera skeleton face.
You know on the posters you see some like mechanical
elements that are part of it. Like, you know, he's
you know, touching on the fact that he's also kind
of made a have some clockwork elements to himself because
he has this big showdown right where he's talking about,

(01:03:45):
you know how the doctors can't be trusted. The doctor
said he wouldn't survive, but he used his own ingenuity
to in his knowledge of music and acoustics to allow
himself to speak again. And he also has that great
line there where he's he says I've killed nine times
in my life. How many murders may be attributed to you?

(01:04:05):
Speaking to the doctor. Yeah, so he comes down there,
he takes the mask off, because this whole thing is like,
soon your son will be disfigured by acid and it'll
look just like me. And then, of course the doctor
continues to try and frantically work the surgery, and meanwhile
he just kind of like backs up and gets into
the elevator. It leaves him to try and pull it off.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Now we Visalia succeeds. The sun is not harmed, but
Fibes does get away and the police arrive. Oh and
there when the police arrive, Volnavia is standing there, I guess,
ready to attack with the golden the solid gold axe.
But then she stands under the acid machine and ye,
she gets she gets acid.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Yeah, she gets acid slimed. We don't actually see her
melt or anything, but it's it's it's you know, it's
in implied melting. And I guess you know, she's not
a good character. She's not.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
She's been doing a lot of murder, a.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
Lot of murders, so it feels fair. Oh but then doctor.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Fibes, he basically gets away with it, because what does
he do? He goes down and we find out, oh,
there's there's missus Fibes in a sort of crypt with
a robotic lifting or mechanically lifting lid. He gets into
the crypt next to her, I guess, planning to be
interred alongside her body, and then hooks up a machine
to replace his blood with embalming fluid and we see

(01:05:20):
it like coming out of these yellow, very clearly labeled
beakers that say embalming fluid. And so he's going down there,
I guess getting embalmed in real time. When the when
the police inspectors show up, they were like, wait a minute,
what was the last plague big stinger? Of course, plague
of darkness? And the lights go.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
Out, Yeah and yeah, we get the credits roll, and
this is in the credits where we see both doctor
the both doctors are listed as the protagonists, which I like.
And then when oh, and then oh, what song is
playing over the end credits just to add to the
utter weirdness of this.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Movie, Somewhere over the rainbow.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Oh, it's so good. And then at the very and
you get a little stinger, you get an evil doctor
Fibes Vincent Price laugh. Oh God, I love it. There's
just even the last twenty minutes, there's so many weird touches,
like I love how the when he self embalms himself alive.
The embalming fluid is this bright yellow opposite the bright
red of the blood. It made me think. I think

(01:06:19):
Phantasm two has bright yellow embalming fluid. I have no
idea what color embalming fluid actually is, but I hope
it's bright mustard yellow like in these motion pictures. There's
the lid to the casket.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Oh what about that?

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
Oh it has like this elaborate sun, moon and Earth,
this astrological thing going on.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Amazing great set design. This one's a real winner. Doctor
Fibes is the best.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
Absolutely. Yeah. This one's a lot of fun. Highly recommend it.
Just just a weird fun picture. Yeah. Probably not for
the wee kids or anything, but.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
It does get unless we say otherwise. That applies to
any movie we talked.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
Right, right, But I've got a lot of fun for
just about everybody else. This one is currently hard to
stream anywhere as of this recording, at least in the
United States. There's an old DVD available in the United
States and that is what I rendered from videodrome to
watch it. There's a nice aero video Blu Ray for
regions b Slash two out there. But luckily the folks

(01:07:24):
that Videodrome informed that a new Blu Ray edition is
about to come out from Keno Lorber. It's going to
come out next month and it's a two pack with
both Fibes movies in it, Part one and the sequel.
So if you're excited to check out this film, well, hey,
it's about here. And who knows, a lot of times
when these films come out like this, it opens up

(01:07:46):
streaming options as well, at least in subsequent months. So
I feel like Fibes is returning in grandiose fashion, which
of course fits him perfectly.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
I can't wait. I will probably be trying to grab.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
One of those. Yeah, Keno Lber. They tend to do
a really good job, all right, Anything else you want
to say about Doctor Fib'es, I mean, there's so many
This is one of those movies. It's just so rich
with weirdness that we didn't even have time to touch
on everything. There's so many great shots, you know, so
many nice little details that are either added to a performance,

(01:08:20):
or certainly to the background. For instance, I feel like
we could have just described his organ that he plays.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
Oh yeah, the glowing red organ.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Oh yeah, it's just so beautifully gothically super villain stylish.
Oh it's just it has to be seen.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
Don't watch this movie if you're making Brussels sprouts for dinner.

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
All right, We're going to go ahead and close out
this episode, But as always so we'd love to hear
from everyone out there. Any FIBES fans have any tidbits
they want to share with us, write in let us know.
Weird howse Cinema comes out every Friday, and the Stuff
to Blow Your Mind podcast. We are primarily a podcast
about science and sometimes mythology and culture and history and

(01:09:07):
so forth, but on Fridays we set most of that
aside and we just focus in on a weird film
like this one. Core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your
Mind come out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Artifact or Monster
Fact on Wednesday, and on Mondays. We do listener mail huge.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other. To suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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